Resistance as 2050 change advances

Friday

Jul 25, 2014 at 12:18 AM

By JESSIE VAN BERKELjessie.vanberkel@heraldtribune.com

The requirement that developers prove they can cover the cost of any new facilities and services — schools, streets, water and the like — before building a village in eastern Sarasota County appears likely to change.

And residents from Englewood to Sarasota are livid.

Taxpayers voiced concerns — primarily, that they could end up subsidizing new communities — for more than two hours at Thursday's county Planning Commission meeting.

The commission nonetheless voted unanimously, with four people absent, to change the provision known as “fiscal neutrality.”

“None of us wants to pay more taxes because of this, and we have to ensure that doesn't happen,” Commissioner John Ask said.

Currently, developers have to prove during defined points in the building process that public and private costs to build a community will be covered by revenues like taxes and impact fees. If they are not able to do so, the county can halt the project. This makes it difficult to finance the villages, county staff and developers have said.

County staff recommended more flexibility, but said they will still provide sufficient safeguards to protect residents from any financial burden.

Developers, under the new plan, would have to provide monitoring reports to the county. If a report shows they fell short of fiscal neutrality in the previous phase of development they must compensate for the shortfall in the next phase and correct their cost assumptions for future phases, according to county documents.

“Experience has shown that it is unlikely for a development to be fiscally neutral at the first phase of development,” Planning Services Division Manager Allen Parsons said. “Rather than require it at the first phase, require it at a more appropriate point.”

The County Commission will have the final say on the change. The board is scheduled to consider the matter Aug. 27 and take a final vote Oct. 22.

The proposed reworking of fiscal neutrality is part of a three-round process to make the Sarasota 2050 plan more developer-friendly. That plan was implemented a decade ago to manage growth in Sarasota County east of I-75.

Other changes to 2050 in this third phase of tweaks include: reducing the amount of green space between hamlet developments, pushing for more affordable housing, and allowing for less commercial and office space.

It on the block: a rule that developers must wait 15 years after building a village before creating a second one nearby. That requirement does not exist for large-scale development and results in a “collection of piecemeal properties,” planner Tamara Schells said.

The original 2050 plan allowed developers to build more homes on land; in exchange, they had to comply with certain rules. This was meant to protect the environment, preserve open space and avoid sprawl by ensuring communities grew according to smart-growth principles, such as having community centers and streets that are easily walkable.

Fiscal neutrality was considered a key piece.

A lot of time and effort went into 2050, resident Betsy Roberts said.

“Here we are years later, and what is happening? We're going back to way before the 2050 plan,” Roberts said. “We've worked all that time for naught, apparently.”

One development has moved forward under the 2050 plan. Some people have said that shows the plan's rules are too strict. Others have faulted the struggling economy.

On Thursday, several residents, including Ron Saba, president of the Desoto Lakes Neighborhood Association, said the plan is working fine.

“Why should we fix a program that is working?” he said, adding, “Nobody wants to be paying more taxes to help developers to enhance development on the other side of 75.”

Members of the Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations, or CONA, said that the county should stop moving forward with an overwhelming amount of confusing changes in the summer, when snowbirds are gone and there are fewer constituents to weigh in.

The timing was not purposeful, but rather a result of the three-phase approach, Parsons said.

The changes to 2050 started after developers met repeatedly with county planning staff to share concerns, CONA member Bill Zoller said, but residents have not gotten to weigh in until the end.

“There's something wrong with the process,” Zoller said, and if the county commission ends up passing the changes they will face a huge number of people who betrayed.

Planning Commissioners repeatedly praised staff's work on the changes. Moving forward, they need to keep talking with residents, Ask said.

“There's a lot of misnomers and misinformation we heard tonight,” he said.